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Investment Portfolio Creation as a Young Adult
Like many other people, the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged me to rethink my finances considerably. It’s served as a reminder that on a given day, we might not be able to spend a dollar the way we intended. Among other things that fell apart, a scheduled Spring Break trip to Austin had to be canceled in March 2020. You’ve all heard (or even experienced) stories like this, not to mention the loss of jobs, and the loss of loved ones. With that in mind, I feel incredibly fortunate to still have a paying job (as a graduate teaching associate) and to be relatively financially stable.
Back in December, I initiated a simple but worthwhile project with my dad: we each pulled $1,000 from savings and opened an account on TDAmeritrade. I wanted to briefly explain the reasons why more families should pursue similar endeavors.
First and foremost, there is the possibility to make quite a bit of money, even when only starting with $2000. The amount is such that if we somehow lost all of it, it would not be financially troublesome for either of us (albeit still disappointing). On the flip side, any profits could either be re-invested in an attempt to make even bigger profits, or saved to help with other expenses (for me these include paying off student loans and saving to purchase a car). The modest amount invested is no excuse for recklessness…